Court denies Woods' appeal

The Court of Appeals on Thursday denied a motion for partial dismissal of Medicaid fraud charges against a former Madison psychologist.

Medea Woods, 70, filed an appeal challenging the judge's decision not to dismiss some of the charges.

The case, which is being handled by the Attorney General's office, alleges that Woods stole more than $600,000 from the government by filing fraudulent Medicaid claims.

The allegations range from April 2002 until January 2007. Charges in this case - the most serious of which is a Class C felony - carry a statute of limitations of five years. That means prosecutors cannot file charges more than five years after the date of an alleged crime. Charges were filed in 2011.

Jackie Bennett Jr. and Michele Richey, Woods' attorneys, argued that some charges should be dropped because they fell outside the range of the statute of limitations.

"They suppressed this into single counts and conduct, most of which is outside the statute of limitations," Bennett said at a January hearing on the motion to dismiss.

Prosecutors contended that Woods concealed evidence that made it impossible for authorities to know the law had been broken, which would render the statute of limitations void.

"The state had no way to know that those weren't legitimate claims," Maureen Devlin, deputy attorney general assigned to the case, said in January.

In the written opinion, Judge Nancy Vaidik said the information provided by the probable cause affidavit supported the concealed evidence exemption. Judges Paul Mathias and Michael Barnes agreed with the decision.

The judges did not take up the issue of whether or not there was evidence to support the validity of the claim, saying that was more appropriate to determine during a trial.